“Okay. Try not to wear yourself out.”
“I’ll be fine. Everything okay your end?”
“Something odd happened. This detective guy showed up at work today. Said his name was Kaga.”
Koki tightened his grip on the phone.
“At Kurochaya?”
Kurochaya was the café where Ami worked part-time.
“Yes, and he asked me something weird.”
“What?”
“He asked me if your mother... if your mother ever came by.”
“My mom?” Koki repeated incredulously. “Why would my mom go to your café? She didn’t know where I live, and she certainly didn’t know that I was living with you.”
“He was pushy. He even showed me a photograph. Got the owner to have a look at it, too.”
“What did the owner say?”
“He said he’d never seen her before. The detective must have believed us, because he left — eventually. What was that all about?”
“Search me. I’ll ask him the next time I see him, if there is a next time. Anything else?”
“No, nothing.”
“Okay. I’ll be back tomorrow after the funeral.”
After hanging up, Koki became pensive. His eyes were drawn again to the photograph of his mother.
For some reason, Mineko’s smile seemed to be tinged with mystery now.
5
Thanks to the efficiency of Koki’s uncle, the funeral went smoothly. The number of people who came was roughly what they had expected, so the ceremony ran without a hitch.
The coffin was carried out. Koki, together with the rest of the family, moved from the funeral hall to the nearby crematorium. He found an unexpected person waiting for him there: Kaga. As a concession to social niceties, the detective was wearing a black tie.
“I’m sorry to intrude at a time like this, but there’s something I thought you should know as soon as possible,” Kaga said, with a bow.
The cremation was going to take some time. Koki wondered if Kaga had timed his visit to coincide with that stage. Whatever it was the detective wanted to tell him, it had to be pretty important.
The two of them went outside. Nearby was a well-tended park dotted with benches. They sat down on one of them.
“We’ve discovered why your mother moved to Kodenmacho,” Kaga began. “I’m pretty confident we’re right about this.”
“Why, then?”
“Do you know a Mrs. Machiko Fujiwara?”
“I think I’ve heard the name...”
“Mrs. Fujiwara was a college friend of your mother. She says she occasionally dropped by to see your mother while she was married and living with your father.”
“Oh, okay,” said Koki. “I know the lady you mean. Yeah, she came by from time to time. My mom called her ‘Machi.’”
“That’s her.” Kaga nodded. “We went through your mother’s computer and we contacted everyone in the address book, but had trouble locating Mrs. Fujiwara. The reason was that she’d moved to the US — Seattle, specifically, something to do with her husband’s job. We finally managed to get through to her by phone this morning. Unsurprisingly, she didn’t know about the murder, let alone have any idea who might be responsible. What she could tell is why Ms. Mitsui moved to Kodenmacho.”
“Why?”
“Because of you.”
“Me?”
“Mrs. Fujiwara moved from Tokyo to Seattle this past March. Not long before she left the country, she was strolling through Nihonbashi when, quite by chance, she saw someone she recognized: it was you.” Kaga directed a piercing look at Koki. “You were on a bicycle with a girl perched on the back. You stopped and dropped the girl off, then rode away. Since Mrs. Fujiwara wouldn’t be able to keep up with you, she decided to follow the girl instead. The girl went into a café that wasn’t yet open. Mrs. Fujiwara lost no time in passing this information along to Ms. Mitsui. She knew your mother was eager to find you. Since your mother moved to Kodenmacho very soon after that, I think it’s reasonable to assume that she moved there to look for you.”
Koki listened to Kaga with bemusement. Until now, it never crossed his mind that his mother might be trying to find him. Now, though, it seemed the most obvious thing in the world: after splitting up with her husband, he was the only family she had left.
“How come she never got in touch with me, then? She knew where Ami worked; all she had to do was to ask her.”
“I’m sure that was your mother’s original intention. I suspect she changed her mind after seeing your girlfriend in the flesh.”
“What do you mean?”
“Even after moving to the US, Mrs. Fujiwara stayed in regular contact with your mother. That’s how she knew your mother moved to Kodenmacho. She assumed that you and your mother would soon be reunited; instead, she got an email from your mother saying she’d decided to hang back and keep an eye on things for a while. Sensing that things might have gotten complicated, Mrs. Fujiwara thought it better not to pry.”
Koki pushed his hand through his bangs. “Why?”
“According to Mrs. Fujiwara, although your mother dropped in to Ami Aoyama’s workplace often, she never revealed her identity to her. She was worried about creeping the girl out by going there so frequently.”
“So you decided to go to Kurochaya yourself. Ami told me on the phone last night. The whole thing’s so weird. I mean, Ami told you that she never saw my mother at Kurochaya?”
“Exactly. So how should we interpret your mother’s emails? Was your mother making it all up when she wrote to Mrs. Fujiwara?”
“Why would she lie about something like that?” Koki grimaced. The whole thing was too bewildering.
At the sight of Koki’s face, Kaga broke into a big grin.
“Don’t worry, she wasn’t lying to anybody. Ms. Mitsui made repeated visits to the place your girlfriend works. That’s an incontestable matter of fact.”
“But Ami was convinced that she never—”
“Perhaps I should phrase that more precisely,” Kaga continued. “She made repeated visits to the place where she thought your girlfriend was working.”
When Koki looked nonplussed, Kaga pulled out a piece of paper from the inside pocket of his jacket. He’d sketched a simple map. Koki recognized it as the area around the main Kodenmacho intersection.
“What’s that for?”
“After Mrs. Fujiwara saw the two of you on the bicycle, she emailed your mother to tell her where your girlfriend was working. She explained how to get there like this: ‘From the Kodenmacho intersection, head in the direction of Ningyocho until you get to an intersection with a Sankyo Bank on the left-hand corner. Turn left, and the café is right next door to the bank.’ What do you think of her directions?”
“I don’t know... No, I mean, it sounds good to me.” Koki called up a mental image of the neighborhood. There didn’t seem to be anything wrong with those directions.
“There was nothing wrong with it... Not, at least, at that point in time.”
“What are you saying?”
“It was early March when Mrs. Fujiwara spotted the two of you in the street. Your mother went to Kodenmacho for the first time around two weeks later. Following her friend’s instructions, she walked from the main Kodenmacho intersection toward Ningyocho. At which point she made a serious mistake. The Sankyo Bank in Mrs. Fujiwara’s email is located three streets away. But two streets before that, there’s a bank with a very similar name: the Sankyo-Daito Bank. Sankyo Bank and Daito Bank merged; the merger took place immediately after Mrs. Fujiwara saw you. Do you see where this is going? When Mrs. Fujiwara was there, the bank at the first intersection was still named the Daito Bank. By the time your mother went, due to the merger, it had changed to the Sankyo-Daito Bank. So your mother turned left there — and who can blame her?”